‘I’m honoured; I really am. In confidence, I take it.’
‘Please; if you’re comfortable with that. It’s rotten of me to ask you to keep a secret from your husband, but he’s a serving officer.’
‘I understand, and so will Stevie, I promise. Do you have a time frame?’
‘Take as long as you like.’
‘A couple of weeks, then. I’ll have plenty of time: we’re hiring a domestic, Ray Wilding’s cousin. She starts on Monday.’
‘Quite right too.’ He followed her through into the sitting room and settled into an armchair as she reclined on her couch.
‘That was quite a thing,’ she said, ‘being asked to lecture by the FBI.’
‘Yes, it was. Mind you, I’ve had a few dealings with them over the years.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘The broad approach to integrity; the difficulty of holding on to it in the face of every situation, and the recognition that sometimes what might seem to be morally unthinkable can be the only possible moral choice we can make.’
‘Were you speaking from personal experience?’ she asked quietly.
‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured, ‘all too personal, I’m afraid.’
‘Maybe you could turn that into a paper too.’
‘Not in a hundred years. It would be no use without specifics, and they’re buried very deep. But I am writing, apart from that document. I’ve started working on a book about the difficulty of detection; it’ll look at successful criminals and examine how they manage to get away with it over an extended period, and it’ll develop the theory that none of us ever catches criminals, that ultimately they give themselves away. The perfect detective doesn’t exist.’
‘Are you going to describe the perfect crime?’
He smiled. ‘How could I, Maggie? To my mind, the perfect crime is one that nobody even knows has been committed.’
‘We could debate that for hours.’
‘And maybe we will, now that you have the time at your disposal. I know you’ve bumped into Aileen professionally, but I’d like you to meet her socially. You’ll get on like a house on fire.’
‘Is it the real thing this time, Bob?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he replied, without hesitation. ‘I love her; to be honest I have since the first moment I laid eyes on her, when she was deputy justice minister and she walked into a briefing at Fettes. But that’s an admission I could only make to close friends, since I was still married to Sarah at the time.’
‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to be included in that category.’
‘You’ve been there for a long time. And now, close friend, are you going to tell me what’s up?’
She looked at him, surprised, and instantly defensive. ‘What makes you think that anything is?’
‘I may not be the perfect detective,’ he told her, ‘but I’m pretty damn good. Your announcement last night was untypical. You don’t make spontaneously emotional gestures, Maggie. I’m not questioning your decision to resign, but the way you sprang it on us: that was the act of someone with more on her mind than impending childbirth.’
She looked away from him. ‘Bob . . .’ she murmured.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at once. ‘I’ve touched a raw nerve. I’m being presumptuous.’
‘No,’ she assured him, ‘you’re not. As always, you’re being perceptive. I’ll tell you, on the same basis that you gave me that report through there. Yes?’
‘Of course.’
She looked back at him, dead in the eye. ‘I have a medical problem, one that’s unrelated to my pregnancy.’
It was his turn to be taken aback. He inhaled deeply. ‘Serious?’ he asked.
‘Potentially very serious.’
‘Life-threatening?’
‘Yes.’
‘And are you being treated?’
‘Not yet. While I’m carrying the baby I can’t be, and I won’t ...’
‘I understand. Stevie doesn’t know, does he.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘No, and he can’t, not until she’s been safely delivered. You will respect that, Bob?’ she added anxiously.
‘Of course. You have my word on it, I told you. I see exactly why you can’t tell him, even though he is your husband and the father of your child. What was I just saying about the morally unthinkable sometimes being the only possible course of action? You’re shielding him from such a choice. However, it will not stop me worrying like hell about you. That paper of mine, Maggie: forget about it.’
‘Absolutely not! I’ll live my life as normal; I have to. Bob, you may find this surprising but I feel . . . what’s the word? Yes, that’s it. I feel serene. With this wee girl growing inside me, I’ve done something that I never dreamed of achieving, something that’s far, far more important than adding all the silver braid in the world to my uniform.’
‘I can understand that,’ he admitted. ‘Fathers can feel that way too. We’ll keep each other’s secrets all right, Maggie. And while all this is happening, I’ll be there for you, if ever you need me.’
‘I know you will, and that helps a lot, believe me.’ She smiled. ‘Now you’d better go and get on with your consorting duties!’
‘Christ,’ he exclaimed, as he rose, ‘I never thought of myself like that.’
‘It’s a sort of a Stevie-ism,’ she told him, accepting his hand to pull herself to her feet. She had just regained the vertical when his mobile sounded.
‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I always forget to switch it off.’
‘That’s what they all say. Go on, answer it.’
‘I’d better; it could be Aileen.’
She watched him as he walked to the window, his back to her as he answered the noisy summons.
‘Mario.’ He sounded surprised. ‘Yes, go on.’ As he listened, she could see his back straighten, his shoulders draw back. ‘There is no doubt about this?’ he asked. ‘I see,’ he said eventually, his voice as stiff as his posture. ‘No, don’t do that. I’ll take that on board. I’m better placed than you to do it. I’m with her right now, in fact.’
He ended the call, and slowly turned towards her. Instinctively she held up a hand, as if to keep him at bay.
Fifty-nine
Stevie Steele was no newcomer to helicopter flight; in their short time together he and Dottie Shannon had gone on a clandestine winter break to Las Vegas and, rather than risk their spending cash on the tables, had splashed much of it on an excursion to the Grand Canyon.
Nevertheless he was surprised by the range and speed of the Metropolitan Police aircraft that picked him up from an open area in Regent’s Park, less than twenty minutes after his call to Mario McGuire.
The pilot explained that he would have to make a stop at his depot but that, once fuelled up and under way, they would reach their destination in less than two hours. ‘You’ve made our month, mate,’ he added, jerking a thumb in the direction of the woman in the co-pilot’s seat. ‘We love to take this thing out of the city and really cut loose. Flying over bleedin’ London, day in, day out, stops being fun after a very short while.’
He handed him a headset. ‘You’ll be able to hear us through that,’ he told him, ‘but nobody else. Mostly they’re to stop you going deaf. Noise limitation is the one piece of chopper technology they haven’t cracked yet.’
‘That part I remember,’ he replied.
The warning was well founded: throughout the flight Steele was content to sit strapped in, listening to the background chatter of the pilots and watching as England spread itself out below. The panorama was enthralling; for a while he concentrated on that and nothing else, until they crossed the Tyne and he forced himself to think
